Stace

This debate is between Jerry and rivrrat. The topic is Prostitution Prohibition/Decriminalization. Jerry is arguing that prostitution should remain illegal and have stronger laws and enforcement. Rivrrat is arguing that prostitution should be decriminalized, regulated, and taxed, bearing in mind the safety of all involved.

This debate will close on March 16 at 12:30 PM. Jerry and rivrrat have 24 hours to make opening statements. Afterwards, one post per day is allowed per opponent, unless an additional post is needed due to character limits. Caine or myself will step in and ask questions if requested to do so by either participant. The last posts made by each participant will be considered their closing arguments, so post wisely.

Additional rules and guidelines will be imposed as necessary. Jerry, since you're online right now, you may begin.

__________________
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

~Benjamin Franklin

Jerry

“The world’s oldest profession”, a phrase which implies that people, women especially, willingly choose to be prostitutes. In my experience people usually choose professions to further their ambitions, reflect their interests, or use their aptitudes and gifts. Prostitution is not a profession; it is the exploitation of a human being.

The vast majority of prostitutes are victims of child abuse and child sexual assault, or are runaways from broken, dysfunctional homes. Out of desperation, a feeling of hopelessness, or from being purposely groomed or “conditioned”, which is what street level pimps call beating, the victim is forced to sell her body for money. Within her “profession” she will be beaten, abused, gang-raped, raped by her pimp and by Johns, become addicted to drugs in an attempt to cope with the stress, and possibly even murdered. This degrading and inhumane “profession” is a prison which will scar her physically and psychologically for the rest of her life.


There are two distinct pathways into prostitution; running away and child abuse.
Running away has dramatic effect on entry into prostitution in early adolescence, but little effect later in the life course. Childhood sexual victimization, by contrast, nearly doubled the odds of entry into prostitution throughout the lives of women. Most prostitutes have been sexually abused as children. Finkelor and Browne state that child sexual abuse leads to feelings by the victim of betrayal, powerlessness, stigmatization, and the sense that sex is a commodity. These feelings often make children vulnerable to revictimisation, including child prostitution.

• 66% of prostitutes were sexually abused from the ages 3-16.
• 66% of prostitutes abused in childhood were molested by natural, step, or foster fathers,
• 90% of prostitutes lost their virginity through sexual assault.
• 70% of prostitutes believed that being sexually abused as children influenced their decisions to become prostitutes.

Source 1
Source 2

Once these child runaways and child-victims of sex crimes become adults, they continue to suffer from even more sexual and physical violence:

• 82% had been physically assaulted.
• 83% had been threatened with a weapon.
• 68% had been raped while working as a prostitute.
• 84% experienced current or past homelessness.
• 73% had been raped, 72% since entering prostitution.
• In 84% of rapes, the rapist was a stranger to the victim.
• In 27% of rape cases, there were multiple assailants. The average number of assailants was 4.
• 44% of rapes involved the use of a weapon.
• 50% of prostitutes reported being kidnapped by pimps; 76% were beaten by pimps; and 79% were beaten by costomers.

Source 3


Due to the fact that the majority of prostitutes have been physically and sexually assaulted, they suffer from psychological affects of rape and child sexual abuse. These include Rape Trauma Syndrome, low self esteem, guilt, and self-destructiveness. Many prostitutes have a “psychological paralysis” that involves wanting help, but rejecting it.

• 15% of all suicide victims are prostitutes.
• 75% of prostitutes attempted suicide.

Prostitutes often will not seek counseling for their problems because they are suspicious of outsiders and authorities, fear rejection, and fear change. Prostitutes often fear admitting that they have been harmed. They may have difficulty establishing enough controle over their own lives to seek counseling, and they may fear that health care and other services will not help them because they are prostitutes.

Prostitutes and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder:
Source 3
Source 4


--"Real sexual relationships are not hard to find. There are plenty of adults of both sexes who are willing to have sex if someone treats them well, and asks. But there lies the problem. Some people do not want an equal, sharing relationship. They do not want to be nice. They do not want to ask. They like the power involved in buying a human being who can be made to do almost anything."

--"The business of prostitution and pornography is the use of real human beings to support the fantasies of others. Anyone working in prostitution who tells a john too much about who they really are, interferes with the fantasy. They risk losing a customer, and may get a beating as well. In real relationships with real people, you are stuck with the limitations of who you are, who your partner is, and what you can do together without hurting each other."

--"No one really wants to have sex with five, ten, or twenty strangers a day, every day. Besides the sheer numbers involved, some of those strangers are going to use a person in ways that are bizarre, painful or disgusting, and occasionally fatal."

--"When people who have worked in prostitution call it repeated rape, they are not exaggerating or being "hysterical." They are being legally precise. Rape is sexual intercourse, against the will of the victim, carried out by threat or force".

United States Code, Title 42, Chapter 147 defines rape as:
In prostitution, the john performs the sex act with the unwilling victim, but subcontracts the intimidation and violence to another man, the pimp. Prostitution = rape.

--"The sex industry ultimately is about power. This is best demonstrated by the care which the industry takes to ensure that those it uses are powerless. The predators are neither irrational nor stupid. They watch carefully for a kind of " victim profile," and avoid anyone who may be uncontrollable or dangerous."

They focus on young people coming out of families that are abusive, disorganized, or non-existent. One fundamental function of the family is protection of its members, especially its children. The family also is a team, and all players must do their jobs. If a member is lost or disabled, others in the extended family or community must step in to carry on. When one or more adults in a family are absent, addicted, mentally ill, or severely demoralized, the children are in danger."


--"The larger society provides the pimps with a very powerful weapon. It makes prostitution an identity, not an occupation. Once you have taken money for sex, you are a prostitute. Society does not allow an expiration date on that identity, nor a way to be publicly accepted as something else."

Society offers help to people in trouble largely based on the value set on that person. It is much easier to get help for a married, middle class, domestic violence victim, than for a refugee from the sex industry trying to escape from a pimp."

--"The health effects of prostitution are devastating. Prostitution, especially in childhood, is at least as effective as war in producing post-traumatic stress disorder. Survivors usually have some combination of depression, anxiety, and dissociative disorders. Brain damage, psychosis, and suicide are common. Long term psychiatric disability, serious medical illness, and the effects of accumulating injuries shorten lives."

How Prostitution Works

As I will demonstrate below, legalizing prostitution only makes the situation worse. It didn’t work in the Netherlands or Nevada, and it won’t work here. We need to apply harsh penalties on johns and pimps, while at the same time providing top quality 24 hour walk-in counseling for victims of prostitution.

__________________
Palin/Miller 2012!

rivrrat

By the age of twelve, at the latest, most women have decided to become prostitutes. Or, to put it another way, they have planned for a future for themselves which consists of choosing a man and letting him do all the work. In return for his support, they are prepared to let him make use of their vagina at certain given moments.
-- Esther Vilar, The Manipulated Man



Sex is a commodity
Anyone who has been in a sexual relationship knows the value of using sex as a bargaining chip. One provides sex for love, or love for sex; Sex for attention, or attention for sex. We "take it away" as punishment, we engage in it as a reward. It is completely normal and acceptable. We even make jokes about it all the time. Sex, like all things, is "for sale" within relationships. This is not a foreign concept. There may not be a direct exchange of cash, but there is an exchange. Sex is a commodity. And it sells fantastically. Anyone who has had sex has "bought" it for some price. Whether it was love, or money, or attention, or ... whatever. You scratch my back and I'll rub your.....

Athletes, models, actors all sell their bodies for profit. What makes a prostitute any different?


All of the following quotes I use are taken from this document.

Prohibition
Prohibition has never worked, and will never work. I don't even think I really need to go into what happened with alcohol prohibition in this country. But if you really need a rundown, here's a good source. It creates criminals where none existed before. It has created the detrimental situation that is sometimes seen within the sex industry. The problems in the sex industry are not because they are selling sex, but instead are a direct result of the illegality of sex. Legalize it, and the vast majority of those problems disappear.


Benefits of Legalization
The main benefit is management. Currently, the crimes attached to the sex industry are often invisible. This is due to the "black market" effect of prohibition. Rapes, forced labor, abuse, and sex crimes related to children occur in the shadows of prostitution. Legalization will allow these things to be reported by the victims without fear of reprisal, and punished accordingly.


Studying other countries
There are several countries where prostitution is legal, with varying degrees of regulation. When looking at the numbers from these countries, we don't see a rise in crime (rape or otherwise) where prostitution is legal. In fact, the opposite is true. Neither do we see a rise in STDs. Crime in countries where prostitution is legal is lower than that of the US. Statistics taken from Nationmaster

Netherlands has the least number of murders and rapes. It does not suffer from an HIV/AIDS epidemic, like the U.S. and the U.K., and has the second lowest suicide rate listed.

The US is second in the world for the number of rapes and murders, which is far above those countries with legalized prostitution.

What these (brief) statistics mean is that legalized prostitution doesn't have the negative effect that some prohibitionists would have you believe. In fact, it can (and will be) easily argued that the crimes associated with prostitution would drastically decrease were it legalized.

Most prohibitionists will harp on the lowest layer of prostitution: the streetwalkers. These are the lowest common denominator, and occupy the lowest numbers in the sex industry. The majority of prostitutes willingly enjoy a modest to very high income, and safe and comfortable working conditions. They are also the ones with the most free will. By focusing on the lowest denominator of the sex industry, prohibitionists try to use emotion and terrible images to sway people to their "side".

The streetwalking prostitutes are the ones in the most danger physically and emotionally. They are the ones abused, forced to work by abusive "pimps", raped, and discarded by most of society. The crimes against them don't carry much weight with us because after all, they're just "hookers".

This lower class status given to prostitutes is exactly the reason these men (and sometimes women) can so easily abuse and exploit women and children against their will.


In short, these are the specific benefits to legalization:

- Allowing law enforcement agencies to respond to more important crimes
- Freeing justice systems from nuisance cases
- Helping women who are trapped by prostitution (i.e., the streetwalkers)
- Preventing teens/children from being forceably taken into prostitution


And, if other countries' statistics are anything to go by, those without anti-prostitution laws have less murders, less rapes, HIV/AIDS is less of a problem, suicide and divorce rates are lower.

__________________
Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.

Jerry

Those who patronize prostitution debase themselves and deepen the misery of others.

Regarding your source's credentials:

About Mark

• Mark Liberator is not qualified to say anything on prostitution under his own authority.

Regarding Mr. Liberator's sources:

• There is yet no link between sexual orientation or marriage and prostitution, therefore cultural differences on relationships between free and equal adults are irrelevant to prostitution.

• The primary source for Mr. Liberator’s argument regarding legal prostitution in
  other countries is “ Decriminalize Prostitution Now Coalition”, who claim:

Here is what the UN Treaty in question has to say about prostitution:
As you can see, anti-prostitution law is not religious moral imposition, but the security of gender equality.

• Other sources from Mr. Liberator regard abortion and alcohol prohibition.
  However since prostitution is not a medical procedure nor is a prostitute an inanimate, non-sapient product, those sources and arguments s have no bearing in the issue.
  
  Neither Moonshine nor fetuses have established basic human rights. Prostitutes, however, do.

• Mr. Liberator quotes various crime rates across a number of nations in an
  attempt to argue that the US should legalize prostitution so as to lower murder, for example. However Mr. Liberator fails to show how or why prostitution was responsible for those lower murder rates. One could take his exact source and make the argument that the lower murder rate in the Netherlands are due to their strict gun laws. The link to prostitution is not made.

Prostitutes are victims:

Prostitution is listed among the crimes some refer to as victimless or consensual crimes, because it is assumed that no one present at the crime is unwilling. However, as I have established, the majority prostitutes start out life as victims of child sexual abuse and broken homes Source 1, only to be further objectified and dehumanized as adult prostitutes Source 2.

To believe prostitution has no victims, one must ignore these statistics published in Farley's Fact Sheet:

Victims of prostitution are slaves:

United State’s Amendment 13:
Victims of prostitution are kept under the control of their pimps through debt, coercion, drug addiction or, more commonly, force (see above links). According to iAbolish, that makes the victim of prostitution a slave:
To legalize prostitution is to legalize slavery.

Victims of sex slavery are trafficked from country to country:

The primary country of destination for victims of human trafficking is the Netherlands. Estimates of the number of victims vary from 1000 to 7000 on a yearly basis. Source 4 The victims mainly originate from the Netherlands, Africa and Eastern Europe, particularly from the Balkans and the former Soviet Union. Most police investigations on human trafficking concern legal sex businesses. All sectors of prostitution are well represented in these investigations, but particularly the window brothels are overrepresented. Source 5,Source 6.

Legalizing pimping, prostitution and trafficking makes the problems worse:

Germany: Sex Trafficking, Prostitution, and World Cup Games

The solution:

Due to the fact that prostitution is the exploitation of children and adult sexual victims for the benefit of the sociopath, we need to criminalize the perches of sex and de-criminalize the sale of sex, all while we form ample and comprehensive social service funds aimed at helping any prostitute who wants to get out, and additional funds to educate the public.

Sweden's Prostitution Solution

rivrrat

Your so-called victims of prostitution are not victims of prostitution at all but rather victims of abuse and rape. Something that is also illegal, and would still remain illegal should prostitution itself become decriminalized. Like most prohibitionists, you focus on the lowest common denominator of prostitution and the group that holds the lowest numbers in the profession - the streetwalkers. Their plight is a direct result of their criminal status and the fact that society itself considers them to be "lesser" people because of what they do.

Regarding your suicide rates, this study says that physicians have a higher suicide rate than anyone else. Is that a reason to make being a doctor illegal? I would think not.

From your own post,

The reason they don't seek counseling or protection for things that the rest of us might is because they are criminals by our current laws. Of course they don't seek help or counseling. Decriminalizing what they do would help them. They would be much more inclined to seek help which would, in itself, decrease the suicide rate, and help to lock up the people who abuse them.

Rape is a crime no matter who the victim is. But when the victim is a criminal herself, she is much less inclined to report it or seek counseling for it. (Rape is highly under reported by ALL victims anyway) Likewise, they are easier targets since aggressors know they are not likely to be punished for what they do. Keeping prostitution illegal only empowers these rapists and abusers to continue to rape and abuse streetwalking prostitutes.

To say that all prostitutes are unwilling would be an ignorant and foolish statement. The statement "To legalize prostitution is to legalize slavery" is an appeal at emotion, and an entirely unfounded one at that. Some are enslaved, yes. We agree on that. Legalization will help stop such forced labor and rape by allowing us to manage the profession, the workers, and the consumers. Keeping it illegal only forces the practitioners to the shadows, where they are more likely to be abused.

The majority of prostitutes enjoy a modest income, safe working conditions, and a healthy work atmosphere and do so because of management of their profession by either themselves, or a third party. The prostitutes are in control, full control. This is the case both in the US and in countries where prostitution is legal. Where prostitution is legal, prostitutes aren't raped and they certainly aren't forced into the work they do. They are instead protected. Something that prohibitionists claim they want to do, but their actions say something entirely different. Instead of protecting these men and women, they facilitate an atmosphere that leads to more abuse and suffering and discard the obvious answer.

As far as the claim regarding prostitutes do what they do because they are desperate, the same could be said of any profession that people generally take a dislike to. We all work because we need the money. We ALL sell ourselves. And many of us have worked truly terrible jobs in order to survive. (which is purely subjective in itself) Desperation is not a reason for criminalization.

Why is selling sex any different than selling other work services? What separates it from the work models do, or actors, or anyone who sells their physical or mental labor at all? Supply and demand is what drives our society. There is absolutely no difference between selling your body for sex, and selling your body or mind for any other service. The only difference in this country is that selling your body for sex is illegal, which makes it inherently dangerous. Take away the criminal aspect, and you eliminate most, if not all, of the danger.

People are forced into work they don't wish to do in this country and others all the time. It's illegal. Enslavement is illegal. Some are forced into the sex industry, yes. But some are forced into other manual labor jobs. We don't make those other jobs illegal simply because some individuals exploit others for profit. Instead, we focus on eliminating those that exploit and abuse - regardless of the job they enslave others to do. The job is not the problem, the criminals that abuse and enslave are the problem. Making or keeping the job illegal does not stop the criminals from abusing people, it only gives them much more free reign to continue doing it. The crimes that happen in the shadows of prostitution can and do happen all over this country by people in all walks of life, and all manner of jobs.

Legality would bring control, safe working conditions, management of health services and would empower women workers to come forward should they happen to be abused or exploited in any way. Currently those women are too afraid to press charges, and rightfully so. Prohibitionists seem hell bent on keeping it that way. They are dutifully dedicated to making sure these women are kept down, kept criminal, and considered lower class.

Jerry

Prostitutes are not criminals, they are victims. The best way to defend and protect them is by cracking down hard on those who abuse and enslave them.



I see that you make your argument absent of external research or source material. This can only mean that you speak on your own authority. Therefore, if would, kindly link to your credentials so that the Moderator, myself and the casual reader may verify that you are qualified on this topic.

Assuming that you either are not qualified to speak on your own authority, or can not, for whatever reason, link to your credentials, please provide your source material for each of the following claims you made in your argument:

• “Streetwalkers” have the lowest numbers in prostitution.
  
• [A prostitute’s] plight is a direct result of their criminal status and the fact that society itself considers them to be "lesser" people because of what they do.
  
• Prostitutes don’t seek counseling because of their criminal status.
  
• The majority of prostitutes enjoy a modest income, safe working conditions, and a healthy work atmosphere.
  
• The prostitutes are in control, full control. This is the case both in the US and in countries where prostitution is legal.
  
• The job is not the problem, the criminals that abuse and enslave are the problem.
  
• They are dutifully dedicated to making sure these women are kept down, kept criminal, and considered lower class.
  
• Legality would bring control, safe working conditions, management of health services and would empower women workers to come forward should they happen to be abused or exploited in any way.

As soon as you source either your credentials or your source material, I can address your argument directly. Until then, however, you have no argument, just your personal opinion ( which I respect as such).

I implore you to please, please read:


….paying particular attention to:

Legalisation in The Netherlands and Victoria, Australia

Operation in practice

Policy change

Consequences for women in the sex industry

Evaluation

The Netherlands has long been the primary Libertarian example alleging the success of legal prostitution. However, all evidence I have found is in direct contradiction to any notion of success. Based on the evidence I have sourced thus far on this thread, legal prostitution can only be described as an abysmal economic failure at best, and a gross violation of basic human rights at worst.

rivrrat

If I have to have "credentials" in order to post rationalized opinions based on personal observance and logic, then I guess this conversation is over. My only "credentials" are that I used to be a prostitute.


As for what you wanted "credentials" for:

Couldn't you find anything to dispute it?

This is simply common sense. The overwhelming majority of rapes are not reported by any victim, regardless of her profession. Now, add to that the fact that the victim is considered a criminal herself. Now, add to that the fact that people like you blame her profession for her rape. (instead of the rapist) Now, add to that the fact that society in general looks down upon prostitutes. How do you really think those added things are going to play out when a rape victim is deciding whether or not to report her attack? It's common sense.

Personal experience and observation, as well as reading/listening to the personal experience and observations of other previous and current sex workers. Maybe you should check out COYOTE or Penet.

You're the one wanting to keep prostitutes criminal, not me.

Common sense.


As for this:
Prostitution has no victims. Rape, abuse, and enslavement have victims, but not prostitution. Prostitution is consenting sex between two adults for a fee. There is NO VICTIM in that transaction.

Your repeated implication that prostitution is to blame for rape is akin to blaming the rape victim for being in the "wrong part of town" or "wearing a sexy outfit". It's blaming the victim.

There is only one thing, one person to blame for a rape. ONE. The rapist. There is no one, or nothing else to blame. Period. It's not the woman's fault for being raped because she was a prostitute. Her profession is not to blame for her rape. Her clothing is not to blame for her rape. Her rapist, and her rapist alone has full responsibility for the rape. By trying to shift the "blame" to her profession, not only do you insult all rape victims, you take the focus off the true culprit.

Same goes for abuse, or enslavement.

Now, when you take away the "blame the victim" mentality of your argument, you really have no argument left.

Jerry

You don't have to have credentials in order to have an opinion, but you do have to have credentials in order to speak objectively on your own authority. Personal experiences are a valid source of knowledge for the individual, though they may not serve as certain sources of knowledge for others who have had different experiences in life.

You claim that you have no credentials of your own, which means your opinion is unqualified, and therefore inadmissible in an objective conversation concerning public policy. One's own personal experience is an Unrepresentative Sample of sociaty as a whole. By atempting to perswade me away from my reserch with not but your experience is an invitation for me to commit The Volvo Fallacy.

No thank you.

***
It is not reasonable to punish the person who sells a sexual service. In the majority of cases at least, this person is a weaker partner who is exploited by those who want only to satisfy their sexual drives (Source 1, Source 2, Source 3, Source 4).


Rationale:
Operation in practice:
Evaluation: